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Web-based assignments
Part 1: Work and organizational behaviour
Part 2: Managing organizations
Part 3: Individuals and work
Part 4: Groups and social interaction
Part 5: Organizational change and performance
Chapter 1: The nature of organizational behaviour
To help you develop your understanding of the subject, we have developed an activity that requires you to maintain a learning journal or log. A learning journal is a simple and straightforward way to help you integrate content, process, personal thoughts and personal work experience of OB. Learning logs operate from the stance that people learn from reflection and through writing. We suggest you make an entry in your log after each completed week of class. Properly understood and used, learning journals assist the learning process by becoming a vehicle for understanding the complex nature of human behaviour in the workplace.
Visit the website http://olc.spsd.sk.ca/DE/PD/instr/strats/logs/ for information on the value of learning journals. Learning journals are concise, objective factual and impersonal in tone. The following questions could be used to guide you in making thoughtful entries in your learning journal about OB:
Later in the book we shall be asking you to use your completed learning journal to help evaluate your studies of OB.
Chapter 2: Work in organizations
Central to the advance of organizational behaviour as a field of critical inquiry is an openness to expanding our understanding of both work and the ‘workplace’. We believe it is important to understand that work expands beyond the boundaries of ‘paid work’ and, importantly, that the place where work is performed extends beyond the formal organization. The notion of work–life balance has increasing relevance to workers, particularly to women, in the early twenty-first century.
On an individual basis, or working in a small group, visit:
Write a brief report of the research and practical issues associated with home-working and work–life balance.
Chapter 3: Studying work and organizations
How are we to make sense of the competing assortment of theoretical approaches to organizational behaviour? We address this question here with reference to the classical accounts of sociology and contemporary approaches to studying formal organizations. Our collective experience in teaching and researching aspects of OB has made it clear that the contemporary student of OB cannot understand the discipline without an appreciation of the works of Marx, Weber and Durkheim. In their own way, each addressed the following two fundamental questions:
On an individual basis, or working in a small group, visit the following websites and write a brief summary of how Marx, Weber and Durkheim have fundamentally shaped the modern debate about work and organizations:
Enter the websites of British Airways (www.ba.com) and Canada’s WestJet airline (www.westjet.com). Scan them to determine the key features of each organization’s business strategy.
You can evaluate the extent that leadership research has influenced management education and training by visiting the Professional Associations Research Network at www.parn.org.uk/parn.cfm?sct=10&content=homepage2.cfm. Select a particular professional group, such as engineers.
Update, September 2008
The Professional Associations Research Network web link is no longer working; you may wish to use the following alternative website to complete the assignment: Centre for Creative Leadership: www.ccl.org/leadership/index.aspx.
Form a group of three to five people, and visit the websites of any of the following organizations:
What personality attributes are these organizations seeking when they recruit new employees?
Now go to www.queendom.com/tests.html and www.support4learning.org.uk/ (search for psychometrics) and examine the psychometric tests. Some of these you may take yourself without applying for a job.
What attracts you to some organizations and not others? Get a copy of the recruitment pages of a national newspaper or a professional publication, such as People Management or The Grocer in the UK. From the advertisements, identify a selection of the recruiting organizations that differ from each other and find details of their websites.
Browse each of the sites, looking particularly at the pages aimed at potential job applicants. If possible, do this with a colleague or friend so that you can have a discussion about it. Consider the following questions:
There are competing views on the purpose of work-related learning. One school of thought believes creativity and innovation are more likely to be fostered in organizations where learning is valued and high-quality. In this sense, workplace learning has an instrumental purpose: to ‘unfreeze’ employee work attitudes and practices to bring about change. Learning can also enhance an organization’s performance and increase a nation’s productivity. (See OB in Focus on The Learning Age , page 221.)
This assignment requires you to critically evaluate these assumptions. First, enter the following websites for more information on lifelong learning: www.lifelonglearning.co.uk and www.lifelonglearning.co.uk/llp/index.htm.
Second, choose two companies, enter their websites, and evaluate how each company provides for continuous work-related learning.
Form a study group of three to five people, and go to the website of any of the following organizations, or a similar one that interests members of the group:
Go to the ‘Company overview’ and the HRM section of the site, and look at the language, assumptions and espoused values. Evaluate the organization’s dominant culture in the light of our discussion in this chapter. Write a report that draws out the common features.
Alternatively, go to the websites of a number of universities, and compare and contrast your own university others in your home country or abroad. As a guide to your search, ask the following questions:
Chapter 10: Equity in organizations: issues of gender, race, disability and class
This chapter covered many areas of inequity in organizations, but it certainly did not cover them all! Issues of ageism (discrimination based on age) and discrimination based on sexual orientation are two of the key ones that were not explored. The latter forms the basis of this case study.
With over 75,000 employees worldwide and 16 billion in revenue, one of the leading corporations in the area of support for employees who are lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) is Raytheon. First, take some time to think of some of the issues faced by LGBT employees. Then go to the www.raytheon.com/feature/equal0606/ and look at Raytheon’s perspective.
Chapter 11: Work groups and teams
Work groups and teams is one of the most important topics of organizational behaviour, and given that many students have experienced group working and will be called upon to work in groups in organizations, it is important to reflect on how groups influence human behaviour.
For this assignment we would like you to gain more information on work teams by visiting www.workteams.org and www.dti.gov.uk/er/emar/2004wers.htm. In addition, you are asked to explore examples of team working in European and North American companies by visiting the following websites: www.honda.com, www.sony.com, http://ptcpartners.com/Team/home.htm, and www.dti.gov.uk/er/emar/2004wers.htm
We have explained that the nature of the communication process established in the organization reflects the management style, degree of employee participation, culture and efficiency in the workplace. Communication is essential for effective decision making. Ineffective communication is linked to a ‘command and control’ vision of management.
This web-based assignment requires you to investigate the extent of communication processes in workplaces in Britain. Visit the website for the Findings from the 2004 Workplace Survey: www.dti.gov.uk/er/emar/2004wers.htm and review the survey findings.
Decision making has been acknowledged as the fundamental element in the manager’s job. Yet it is a complex phenomenon because it involves not only technical considerations but also power struggles. It remains associated to a ‘command and control’ vision of management, as well as to a vision of managers as omnipresent and omnipotent. Decision making can be improved by using group processes which help to minimize the biases and errors.
This web-based assignment requires you to investigate the extent of decentralized decision making processes. We would like you visit the websites for the Findings from the 2004 Workplace Survey: www.workteams.org and www.dti.gov.uk/er/emar/2004wers.htm.
Chapter 14: Power, politics and conflict
The discussion in this chapter provided the basis for a comparison of different theories of power. Take some time to obtain and read the discussion of power in the special 2002 issue of Journal of Organizational Behavior Management (Volume 22, Issue 3). Also visit www.colostate.edu/Depts/Speech/rccs/theory54.htm for Foucault on power/knowledge.
After reviewing the material, do as we began to do in the last section of this chapter: test the assumptions of the conceptualizations of power in this issue against the broader social theories of power we outlined in the first half of the chapter.
Chapter 15: Organizational design and culture
This chapter discusses the different types of organizational designs, and the interconnectedness between structure and restructuring, and organizational behaviour. Organizations can adopt a large number of structures to match their strategy, size, technology and profit-making imperative. Restructuring affects job design and individual workers’ perception of the employer, and work motivation.
This web-based assignment requires you to explore the web to find a site that displays an organizational chart, or that discusses a method of managing its structure. For example, enter the website of Dell Computers: www.dellcomputers.ca or Canadian TV and media company Globalmedia: www.globalmedia.ca, or a car manufacturer www.saturnbp.com for an example of a ‘flatter’ organizational structure.
Consider these questions:
Chapter 16: Technology in work organizations
There are few words that appear as often as the word ‘technology’ on the internet today. In many ways computers, the internet and technology are thought of as synonymous with one another. However, one of the goals of this chapter is build a more ‘social’ analysis of technology, and also to think carefully about what technology really means. Building a basic historical awareness of different sorts of tools, devices, machines, and so on, can be helpful in this respect.
http://inventors.about.com/library/bl/bl12.htm does not present a definitive historical account of the origins of different technologies (in the broader sense) – but it is worth exploring to begin to gain a sense of how technology developed. Based on this, you can then build a deeper, and more critical appreciation for how and why specific forms of technology emerged, and, in turn, why they affect organizations in the way that they do.
Chapter 17: Human resource management
This chapter has discussed the importance of strategic HRM and the links between SHRM and organizational performance. This web-based assignment requires you to explore the research findings from the 2004 Workplace Employment Relations Survey.
Visit: www.dti.gov.uk/er/emar/2004WERS.htm, and use its information to consider these questions:
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